NY organ trafficker admits buying kidneys in Israel for $10,000... and
selling them in U.S. for $120,000

Lawyers for a man who pleaded guilty Thursday in the first ever federal
conviction for illegal organ trafficking say he was performing life-saving
services for severely ill people.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from New York, admitted in a Trenton federal court to
brokering three illegal kidney transplants for desperate New Jersey-based
customers in exchange for payments of $120,000 or more.

He also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count for brokering an illegal kidney
sale.

He simply agreed to help desperately ill people by finding them kidney
donors, they said.

The lawyers claim the surgeries occurred in prestigious American hospitals
and were performed by experienced transplant experts.

They did not, however, name the hospitals involved, the Associated Press
reports.

The lawyers claimed that the donors he arranged to give up kidneys were fully
aware of what they were doing.

But anthropologist and organ trade expert Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who described
Israel as a 'pariah' in the organ transplant world, has said in the past that
many of the donors were desperately poor immigrants from eastern European
countries such as Moldova, Romania and Russia.

They say the recipients are leading healthy lives thanks to Rosenbaum.

The 60-year-old was arrested two years ago following a huge investigation
into corruption in New Jersey.

The probe led to 46 arrests, including several rabbis, the New York Daily
News reports.

'I am what you call a matchmaker ... I've never had a failure.'

He was nabbed after an FBI informant who was pretending to be a businessman
told him he was looking for a new kidney for a sick uncle

Rosenbaum was caught on tape boasting that he had brokered 'quite a lot' of
illegal transplants.

He told the informant: 'I am what you call a matchmaker.'

'I bring a guy what I believe, he's suitable for your uncle ... I've never
had a failure.'

Prosecutors said he bought the organs from vulnerable people in Israel for as
little as $10,000, then sold them here for a minimum of $120,000.

New Jersey's U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said: 'A black market in human organs
is not only a grave threat to public health, it reserves lifesaving treatment
for those who can best afford it at the expense of those who cannot. We will not
tolerate such an affront to human dignity.'

Caught in a sting: Rosenbaum is handcuffed and arrested in 2009 after a huge
probe intro corruption in New Jersey

Rosenbaum faces a maximum five-year prison sentence on each count, plus a
fine of up to $250,000. He also agreed to forfeit $420,000 in property that came
from the kidney sales.

He is a member of the Orthodox Jewish community in the Borough Park section
of Brooklyn, where he had told neighbors he was in the construction business.

Under 1984 federal law, it is illegal for anyone to knowingly buy or sell
organs for transplant.

The practice is illegal just about everywhere else in the world, too.

But demand for kidneys far outstrips the supply, with 4,540 people dying in
the U.S. last year while waiting for a kidney, according to the United Network
for Organ Sharing.

Evil plan: Rosenbaum's home in Brooklyn where the matchmaking was
masterminded

As a result, there is a thriving black market for kidneys around the world.

Art Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of
Pennsylvania and a co-chairman of a United Nations task force on organ
trafficking, said kidneys are the most common of all trafficked organs because
they can be harvested from live donors, unlike other organs.

He said Rosenbaum had pleaded guilty to one of the 'most heinous crimes
against another human being.'

Mr Caplan said: 'Internationally, about one quarter of all kidneys appear to
be trafficked.

'But until this case, it had not been a crime recognized as reaching the
United States.'